HAVE boots, will travel. It seems to have been the Denis O’Regan motto from his teenage years, when he stood outside his house on the main road out of Youghal and thumbed his way to Dungarvan, Conna and Mallow for a chance to hone his skills helping out astute operators such as John Kiely, John Queally, Jimmy Mangan and Liam Burke.

In time, the willingness to work and take on new challenges brought him to Ballynure in Wicklow where he was based with Francis Flood and Castletown in Meath with Noel Meade.